diff --git a/data/conf/rspamd/local.d/options.inc b/data/conf/rspamd/local.d/options.inc
index eb6de538..fcf499d7 100644
--- a/data/conf/rspamd/local.d/options.inc
+++ b/data/conf/rspamd/local.d/options.inc
@@ -3,3 +3,6 @@ dns {
 }
 map_watch_interval = 30s;
 disable_monitoring = true;
+# In case a task times out (like DNS lookup), soft reject the message
+# instead of silently accepting the message without further processing.
+soft_reject_on_timeout = true;